Duke   University   Libraries 

Our  danger  and 
Conf  Pam  12mo  #396 


OUR  DANGER  AND  OUR  DUTY; 


BY 


Rev.  J.  H.  THORNWELL,  D.  D. 


COLUMBIA,  S.   C: 

SOUTHERN  GU4.RDIAN  STEAM-POWER  PRESS. 

1862. 


#3\ 


OUR  DAGGER  AND  OUR  DUTY. 


The  ravages  of  Louis  XIV.  in  the  beautiful  valleys  of  the  Rhine, 
about  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  may  be  taken  as  a  speci- 
men of  the  appalling  desolation  which  is  likely  to  overspread  the 
Confederate  States,  if  the  Northern  army  should  succeed  in  its 
schemes  of  subjugation  and  of  plunder.  Europe  was  then  outraged 
by  atrocities  inflicted  by  Christians  upon  Christians,  more  fierce  and 
cruel  than  even  Mahometans  could  have  had  the  heart  to  perpetrate. 
Private  dwellings  were  razed  to  the  ground,  fields  laid  waste,  citie> 
burnt,  churches  demolished,  and  the  fruits  of  industry  wantonly  and 
ruthlessly  destroyed.  But  three  days  of  grace  were  allowed  to  the 
wretched  inhabitants  to  flee  their  country,  and  in  a  short  time,  the 
historian  tells  us,  "the  roads  and  fields,  which  then  lay  deep  in  snow, 
were  blackened  by  innumerable  multitudes  of  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, flying  from  their  homes.  Many  died  of  cold  and  hunger:  but 
enough  survived  to  fill  the  streets  of  all  the  cities  of  Europe  with 
lean  and  squalid  beggars,  who  had  once  been  thriving  farmers  and 
shopkeepers."  And  what  have  we  to  expect  if  our  enemies  prevail '( 
Our  homes,  too,  are  to  be  pillaged,  our  cities  sacked  and  demolished, 
our  property  confiscated,  our  true  men  hanged,  and  those  who  escape 
the  gibbet,  to  be  driven  as  vagabonds  and  wanderers  in  foreign  climes. 
This  beautiful  country  is  to  pass  out  of  our  hands.  The  boundaries 
which  mark  our  States  are,  in  some  instances,  to  be  effaced,  and  the 
States  that  remain  are  to  be  converted  into  subject  provinces,  gov- 
erned by  Northern  rulers  and  by  Northern  laws.  Our  property  is  to 
be  ruthlessly  seized  and  turned  over  to  mercenary  strangers,  in  order 
to  pay  the  enormous  debt  which  our  subjugation  has  cost.  Our 
wives  and  daughters  are  to  become  the  prey  of  brutal  lust.  The 
slave,  too,  will  slowly  pass  away,  as  the  red  man  did  before  him,  under 
the  protection  of  Northern  philanthropy ;  and  the  whole  country,  now 
a2 


like  the  garden  of  Eden  in  beauty  and  fertility,  will  first  be  a  black- 
ened and  smoking  desert,  and  then  the  minister  of  Northern  cupidity 
and  avarice.  Oar  history  will  be  worse  than  that  of  Poland  and 
Hungary.  There  is  not  a  single  redeeming  feature  in  the  picture  of 
ruin  which  stares  us  in  the  face,  if  we  permit  ourselves  to  be  con- 
quered. It  is  a  night  of  thick  darkness  that  will  settle  upon  us. 
Even  sympathy,  the  last  solace  of  the  afflicted,  will  be  denied  to  us. 
The  civilized  world  wilj  look  coldly  upon  us,  or  even  jeer  us  with  the 
taunt  that  we  have  deservedly  lost  our  own  freedom  in  seeking  to 
perpetuate  the  slavery  of  others.  We  shall  perish  under  a  cloud  of 
reproach  and  of  unjust  suspicions,  sedulously  propagated  by  our  ene- 
mies, which  will  be  harder  to  bear  than  the  loss  of  home  and  of  goods. 
Such  a  fate  never  overtook  any  people  before. 

The  case  is  as  desperate  with  our  enemies  as  with  ourselves.  They 
must  succeed  or  perish.  They  must  conquer  us  or  be  destroyed 
themselves.  If  they  fail,  national  bankruptcy  stares  them  in  the 
face;  divisions  in  their  own  ranks  are  inevitable,  and  their  Govern- 
ment will  fall  to  pieces  under  the  weight  of  its  own  corruption.  They 
know  that  they  are  a  doomed  people  if  they  are  defeated.  Hence 
their  madness.  They  must  have  our  property  to  save  them  from  in- 
solvency. They  must  show  that  the  Union  cannot  be  dissolved,  to 
save  them  from  future  secessions.  The  parties,  therefore,  in  this 
conflict  can  make  no  compromises.  It  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death 
with  both — a  struggle  in  which  their  all  is  involved. 

But  the  consequences  of  success  on  our  part  will  be  very  different 
from  the  consequences  of  success  on  the  part  of  the  North.  If  they 
prevail,  the  whole  character  of  the  Government  will  be  changed,  and 
instead  of  a  federal  republic,  the  common  agent  of  sovereign  and  inde- 
pendent States,  we  shall  have  a  central  despotism,  with  the  notion  of 
States  forever  abolished,  deriving  its  powers  from  the  will,  and  shap- 
ing its  policy  according  to  the  wishes,  of  a  numerical  majority  of  the 
people;  we  shall  have,  in  other  words,  a  supreme,  irresponsible  de- 
mocracy. The  will  of  the  North  will  stand  for  law.  The  Government 
does  not  now  recognize  itself  as  an  ordinance  of  God,  and  when  all 
the  checks  and  balances  of  the  Constitution  are  gone,  we  may  easily 
figure  to  ourselves  the  career  and  the  destiny  of  this  godless  monster 
of  democratic  absolutism.  The  progress  of  regulated  liberty  on  this 
continent  will  be  arrested,  anarchy  will  soon  succeed,  and  the  end 
will  be  a  military  despotism,  which  preserves  order  by  the  sacrifice  of 


the  last  vestige  of  liberty.  We  are  fully  persuaded  that  the  triumph 
of  the  North  in  the  present  conflict  will  be  as  disastrous  to  the  hopes 
of  mankind  as  to  our  own  fortunes.  They  are  now  fighting  the  battle 
of  despotism.  They  have  put  their  Constitution  under  their  feet ; 
they  have  annulled  its  most  sacred  provisions ;  and  in  defiance  of  its 
solemn  guaranties,  they  are  now  engaged,  in  the  halls  of  Congress,  in 
discussing  aud  maturing  bills  which  make  Northern  notions  of  neces- 
sity the  paramount  laws  of  the  land.  The  avowed  end  of  the  present 
war  is,  to  make  the  Government  a  government  of  force.  It  is  to  settle 
the  principle,  that  whatever  may  be  its  corruptions  and  abuses,  how- 
ever unjust  and  tyrannical  its  legislation,  there  is  no  redress,  except 
in  vain  petition  or  empty  remonstrance.  It  was  as  a  protest  against 
this  principle,  which  sweeps  away  the  last  security  for  liberty,  that 
Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee  and  Missouri  seceded,  and  if  the 
Government  should  be  reestablished,  it  must  be  reestablished  with 
this  feature  of  remorseless  despotism  firmly  and  indelibly  fixed.  The 
future  fortunes  of  our  children,  and  of  this  continent,  would  then  be 
determined  by  a  tyranny  which  has  no  parallel  in  history. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  are  struggling  for  constitutional  freedom. 
We  are  upholding  the  great  principles  which  our  fathers  bequeathed 
us,  and  if  we  should  succeed,  and  become,  as  we  shall,  the  dominant 
nation  of  this  continent,  we  shall  perpetuate  and  diffuse  the  very  lib- 
erty for  which  Washington  bled,  and  which  the  heroes  of  the  Rev6lu- 
tion  achieved.  We  are  not  revolutionists — we  are  resisting  revolution. 
We  are  upholding  the  true  doctrines  of  the  Federal  Constitution. 
We  are  conservative.  Our  success  is  the  triumph  of  all  that  has  been 
considered  established  in  the  past.  We  can  never  become  aggressive; 
we  may  absorb,  but  we  can  never  invade  for  conquest,  any  neighboring 
State.  The  peace  of  the  world  is  secured  if  our  arms  prevail.  We 
shall  have  a  Government  that  acknowledges  God,  that  reverences 
right,  and  that  makes  law  supreme.  We  are,  therefore,  fighting  not 
for  ourselves  alone,  but,  when  the  struggle  is  rightly  understood,  for 
the  salvation  of  this  whole  continent.  It  is  a  noble  cause  in  which 
we  are  engaged.  There  is  everything  in  it  to  rouse  the  heart  and  to 
nerve  the  arm  of  the  freeman  and  the  patriot ;  and  though  it  may 
now  seem  to  be  under  a  cloud,  it  is  too  big  with  the  future  of  our  race 
to  be  suffered  to  fail.  It  cannot  fail;  it  must  not  fail.  Our  people 
must  not  brook  the  infamy  of  betraying  their  sublime  trust.  This 
beautiful  land  we  must  never  suffer  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  strangers. 


Our  fields,  our  homes,  our  firesides  and  sepulchres,  our  cities  and  tem- 
ples, our  wives  and  daughters,  we  must  protect  at  every  hazard.  The 
glorious  inheritance  which  our  fathers  left  us  we  must  never  betray. 
The  hopes*  with  which  they  died,  and  which  buoyed  their  spirits  in  the 
last  conflict,  of  making  their  country  a  blessing  to  the  world,  we  must 
not  permit  to  be  unrealized.  We  must  seize  the  torch  from  their 
hands,  and  transmit  it  with  increasing  brightness  to  distant  genera- 
tions. The  word  failure  must  not  be  pronounced  among  us.  It  is  not 
a  thing  to  be  dreamed  of.  We  must  settle  it  that  we  must  succeed. 
We  must  not  sit  down  to  count  chances.  There  is  too  much  at  stake 
to  think  of  discussing  probabilities — we  must  make  success  a  certainty, 
and  that,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  we  can  do.  If  we  are  prepared  to 
do  our  duty,  and  our  whole  duty,  we  have  nothing  to  fear.  But  what 
is  our  duty  ?  This  is  a  question  which  we  must  gravely  consider. 
We  shall  briefly  attempt  to  answer  it. 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  shake  off  all  apathy,  and  become  fully 
alive  to  the  magnitude  of  the  crisis.  We  must  look  the  danger  in  the 
face,  and  comprehend  the  real  grandeur  of  the  issue.  We  shall  not 
exert  ourselves  until  we  are  sensible  of  the  need  of  effort.  As  long; 
as  we  cherish  a  vague  hope  that  help  may  come  from  abroad,  or  that 
there  is  something  in  our  past  history,  or  the  genius  of  our  institu- 
tions, to  proteot  us  from  overthrow,  we  are  hugging  a  fatal  delusion  to 
our  bosoms.  This  apathy  was  the  ruin  of  Greece  at  the  time  of  the 
Macedonian  invasion.  This  was  the  spell  which  Demosthenes  labored 
so  earnestly  to  break.  The  Athenian  was  as  devoted  as  ever  to  his 
native  city  and  the  free  institutions  he  inherited  from  his  fathers ; 
but  somehow  or  other  he  could  not  believe  that  his  country  could  be 
conquered.  He  read  its  safety  in  its  ancient  glory.  He  felt  that  it 
had  a  prescriptive  right  to  live.  The  great  orator  saw  and  lamented 
the  error;  he  poured  forth  his  eloquence  to  dissolve  the  charm;  but 
the  fatal  hour  had  come,  and  the  spirit  of  Greece  could  not  be  roused. 
There  was  no  more  real  patriotism  at  the  time  of  the  second  Persian 
invasion  than  in  the  age  of  Philip  j  but  then  there  was  no  apathy, 
every  man  appreciated  the  danger ;  he  saw  the  crash  that  was  coming, 
and  prepared  himself  to  resist  the  blow.  He  knew  that  there  was  no 
safety  except  in  courage  and  in  desperate  effort.  Every  man,  too, 
felt  identified  with  the  State  j  a  part  of  its  weight  rested  on  his  shoul- 
ders. It  was  this  sense  of  personal  interest  and  personal  responsi- 
bility— the  profound  conviction  that  every  one  had  something  to  do, 


and  that  Greece  expected  him  to  do  it — this  was  the  public  spirit  which 
turned  back  the  countless  hordes  of  Xerxes,  and  saved  Greece  to  lib- 
erty and  man.  This  is  the  spirit  which  we  must  have,  if  we,  too, 
would  succeed.  We  must  be  brought  to  see  that  all,  under  God,  de- 
pends on  ourselves;  and,  looking  away  from  all  foreign  alliances,  we 
must  make  up  our  minds  to  fight  desperately  and  fight  long,  if  we 
would  save  the  country  from  ruin,  and  ourselves  from  bondage.  Every 
man  should  feel  that  he  has  an  interest  in  the  State,  and  that  the 
State  in  a  measure  leans  upon  him ;  and  he  should  rouse  himself  to 
efforts  as  bold  and  heroic  as  if  all  depended  on  his  single  right  arm. 
Our  courage  should  rise  higher  than  the  danger,  and  whatever  may 
be  the  odds  against  us,  we  must  solemnly  resolve,  by  God's  blessing, 
that  we  will  not  be  conquered.  When,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the 
danger,  we  are  brought  to  this  point,  we  are  in  the  way  of  deliver- 
ance, but  until  this  point  is  reached,  it  is  idle  to  count  on  success. 

It  is  implied  in  the  spirit  which  the  times  demand,  that  all  private 
interests  are  sacrificed  to  the  public  good.  The  State  becomes  every- 
thing, and  the  individual  nothing.  It  is  no  time  to  be  casting  about 
for  expedients  to  enrich  ourselves.  The  man  who  is  now  intent  upon 
money,  who  turns  public  necessity  and  danger  into  means  of  specula- 
tion, would,  if  very  shame  did  not  rebuke  him,  and  he  were  allowed 
to  follow  the  natural  bent  of  his  heart,  go  upon  the  field  of  battle  after 
an  engagement  and  strip  the  lifeless  bodies  of  his  brave  countrymen 
of  the  few  spoils  they  carried  into  the  fight.  Such  men,  unfit  for  any- 
thing generous  or  noble  themselves,  like  the  hyena,  can  only  suck  the 
blood  of  the  lion.  It  ought  to  be  a  reproach  to  any  man,  that  he  is 
growing  rich  while  his  country  is  bleeding  at  every  pore.  If  we  had 
a  Themistocles  among  us,  he  would  not  scruple  to  charge  the  miser 
and  extortioner  with  stealing  the  Gorgon's  head ;  he  would  search 
their  stuff,  and  if  he  could  not  find  that,  he  would  find  what  would 
answer  his  country's  needs  much  more  effectually.  This  spirit  must 
be  rebuked ;  every  man  must  forget  himself,  and  think  only  of  the 
public  good. 

The  spirit  of  faction  is  even  more  to  be  dreaded  than  the  spirit  of 
avarice  and  plunder.  It  is  equally  selfish,  and  is,  besides,  distracting 
and  divisive.  The  man  who  now  labors  to  weaken  the  hands  of  the 
Government,  that  he  may  seize  the  reins  of  authority,  or  cavils  at  pub- 
lic measures  and  policy,  that  he  may  rise  to  distinction  and  office,  has 
all  the  selfishness  of  a  miser,  and  all  the  baseness  of  a  traitor.     Our 


8 

rulers  are  not  infallible :  but  their  errors  are  to  be  reviewed  with 
candor,  and  their  authority  sustained  with  unanimity.  Whatever 
has  a  tendency  to  destroy  public  confidence  in  their  prudence,  their 
wisdom,  their  energy,  and  their  patriotism,  undermines  the  security 
of  our  cause.  We  must  not  be  divided  and  distracted  among  our- 
selves. Our  rulers  have  great  responsibilities ;  they  need  the  support 
of  the  whole  country ;  and  nothing  short  of  a  patriotism  which  buries 
all  private  differences,  which  is  ready  for' compromises  and  concessions, 
which  can  make  charitable  allowances  for  differences  of  opinion,  and 
even  for  errors  of  judgment,  can  save  us  from  the  consequences  of 
party  and  faction.  We  must  be  united.  If  our  views  are  not  carried 
out,  let  us  sacrifice  private  opinion  to  public  safety.  In  the  great 
conflict  with  Persia,  Athens  yielded  to  Sparta,  and  acquiesced  in  plans 
she  could  not  approve,  for  the  sake  of  the  public  good.  Nothing 
could  be  more  dangerous  now  than  scrambles  for  office  and  power,  and 
collisions  among  the  different  departments  of  the  Government.  We 
must  present  a  united  front. 

It  is  further  important  that  every  man  should  be  ready  to  work.  It 
is  no  time  to  play  the  gentleman;  no  time  for  dignified  leisure.  All 
cannot  serve  in  the  field  j  but  all  can  do  something  to  help  forward 
the  common  cause.  The  young  and  the  active,  the  stout  and  vigorous, 
should  be  prepared  at  a  moment's  warning  for  the  ranks.  The  dis- 
position should  be  one  of  eagerness  to  be  employed  j  there  should  be 
no  holding  back,  no  counting  the  cost.  The  man  who  stands  back 
from  the  ranks  in  these  perilous  times,  because  he  is  unwilling  to  serve 
his  country  as  a  private  soldier,  who  loves  his  ease  more  than  liberty 
his  luxuries  more  than  his  honor,  that  man  is  a  dead  fly  in  our  pre- 
cious ointment.  In  seasons  of  great  calamity  the  ancient  pagans  were 
accustomed  to  appease  the  anger  of  their  gods  by  human  sacrifices ; 
and  if  they  had  gone  upon  the  principle  of  selecting  those  whose 
moral  insignificance  rendered  them  alike  offensive  to  heaven  and  use- 
less to  earth,  they  would  always  have  selected  these  drones,  and  loaf- 
ers, and  exquisites.  A  Christian  nation  cannot  offer  them  in  sacrifice, 
but  public  contempt  should  whip  them  from  their  lurking  holes,  and 
compel  them  to  share  the  common  danger.  The  community  that  will 
cherish  such  men  without  rebuke,  brings  down  wrath  upon  it.  They 
must  be  forced  to  be  useful,  to  avert  the  judgments  of  God  from  the 
patrons  of  cowardice  and  meanness. 


Public  spirit  will  not  have  reached  the  height  which  the  exigency 
demands,  until  we  shall  have  relinquished  all  fastidious  notions  of 
military  etiquette,  and  have  come  to  the  point  of  expelling  the  enemy 
by  any  and  every  means  that  God  has  put  in  our  power.  We  are  not 
fighting  for  military  glory;  we  are  fighting  for  a  home,  and  for  a  na- 
tional existence.  We  are  not  aiming  to  display  our  skill  in  tactics 
and  generalship ;  we  are  aiming  to  show  ourselves  a  free  people,  wor- 
thy to  possess  aDd  able  to  defend  the  institutions  of  our  fathers. 
What  signifies  it  to  us  how  the«foe  is  vanquished,  provided  it  is  done? 
Because  we  have  not  weapons  of  the  most  approved  workmanship,  are 
we  to  sit  still  and  see  our  soil  overrun,  and  our  wives  and  children 
driven  from  their  homes,  while  we  have  in  our  hands  other  weapons 
that  can  equally  do  the  work  of  death  ?  Are  we  to  perish  if  we  can- 
not conquer  by  the  technical  rules  of  scientific  warfare  ?  Are  we  to 
sacrifice  our  country  to  military  punctilio?  The  thought  is  mon- 
strous. We  must  be  prepared  to  extemporize  expedients.  We 
must  cease  to  be  chary,  either  about  our  weapons  or  the  means 
of  using  them.  The  end  is  to  drive  back  our  foes.  If  we  cannot 
procure  the  best  rifles,  let  us  put  up  with  the  common  guns  of 
the  country;  if  they  cannot  be  had,  with  pikes,  and  axes,  and 
tomahawks ;  anything  that  will  do  the  work  of  death  is  an  effective 
instrument  in  a  brave  man's  hand.  We  should  be  ready  for  the 
regular  battle  or  the  partisan  skirmish.  If  we  are  too  weak  to 
stand  an  engagement  in  the  open  field,  we  can  waylay  the  foe,  and 
harass  and  annoy  him.  We  must  prepare  ourselves  for  a  guerrilla  war. 
The  enemy  must  be  conquered;  and  any  method  by  which  we  can 
honorably  do  it  must  be  resorted  to.  This  is  the  kind  of  spirit  which 
we  want  to  see  aroused  among  our  people.  With  this  spirit,  they  will 
never  be  subdued.  If  driven  from  the  plains,  they  will  retreat  to  the 
mountains;  if  beaten  in  the  field,  they  will  hide  in  swamps  and 
marshes,  and  when  their  enemies  are  least  expecting  it,  they  will 
pounce  down  upon  them  in  the  dashing  exploits  of  a  Sumter,  a  Marion, 
and  a  Davie.  It  is  only  when  we  have  reached  this  point  that  public 
spirit  is  commensurate  with  the  danger. 

In  the  second  place,  we  must  guard  sacredly  against  cherishing  a 
temper  of  presumptuous  confidence.  The  cause  is  not  ours,  but  God's; 
and  if  we  measure  its  importance  only  by  its  accidental  relation  to 
ourselves,  we  may  be  suffered,  to  perish  for  our  pride.  No  nation  ever 
yet  achieved  anything  great  that  did  not  regard  itself  as  the  instru- 


10    i 

ment  df  Providence.  The  only  lasting  inspiration  of  lofty  patriotism 
and  exalted  courage  is  the  inspiration  of  religion.  The  Greeks  and 
Romans  never  ventured  upon  any  important  enterprise  without  con- 
sulting their  gods.  They  felt  that  they  were  safe  only  as  they  were 
persuaded  that  they  were  in  alliance  with  heaven.  Man,  though 
limited  in  space,  limited  in  time,  and  limited  in  knowledge,  is  truly 
great,  when  he  is  linked  to  the  Infinite  as  the  means  of  accomplishing 
lasting  ends.  To  be  God's  servant,  that  is  his  highest  destiny,  his 
sublimest  calling.  Nations  are  under  the  pupilage  of  Providence ; 
they  are  in  training  themselves,  that  tliey  may  be  the  instruments  of 
furthering  the  progress  of  the  human  race. 

Polybius,  the  historian,  traces  the  secret  of  Roman  greatness  to 
the  profound  sense  of  religion  which  constituted  a  striking  feature  of 
the  national  character.  He  calls  it,  expressly,  the  firmest  pillar  of  the 
Roman  State ;  and  he  does  not  hesitate  to  denounce,  as  enemies  to 
public  order  and  prosperity,  those  of  his  own  contemporaries  who 
sought  to  undermine  the  sacredness  of  these  convictions.  Even  Na- 
poleon sustained  his  vaulting  ambition  by  a  mysterious  connection 
with  the  invisible  world.  He  was  a  man  of  destiny.  It  is  the  relation 
to  God,  and  His  providential  training  of  the  race,  that  imparts  true 
dignity  to  our  struggle ;  and  we  must  recognize  ourselves  as  God's 
servants,  working  out  His  glorious  ends,  or  we  shall  infallibly  be  left 
to  stumble  upon  the  dark  mountains  of  error.  Our  trust  in  Him  must 
be  the  real  spring  of  our  heroic  resolution  to  conquer  or  to  die.  A 
sentiment  of  honor,  a  momentary  enthusiasm,  may  prompt  and  sustain 
spasmodic  exertions  of  an  extraordinary  character  j  but  a  steady  valor, 
a  self-denying  patriotism,  protracted  patience,  a  readiness  to  do,  and 
dare,  and  suffer,  through  a  generation  or  an  age,  this  comes  only  from 
a  sublime  faith  in  God.  The  worst  symptom  that  any  people  can 
manifest,  is  that  of  pride.  With  nations,  as  with  individuals,  it  goes 
before  a  fall.  Let  us  guard  against  it.  Let  us  rise  to  the  true  gran- 
deur of  our  calling,  and  go  forth  as  servants  of  the  Most  High,  to 
execute  His  purposes.  In  this  spirit  we  are  safe.  By  this  spirit  our 
principles  are  ennobled,  and  our  cause  translated  from  earth  to 
heaven.  An  overweening  confidence  in  the  righteousness  of  our 
cause,  as  if  that  alone  were  sufficient  to  insure  our  success,  betrays 
gross  inattention  to  the  Divine  dealings  with  communities  and  States. 
In  the  issue  betwixt  ourselves  and  our  enemies,  we  may  be  free  from 
blame ;  but  there  may  be  other  respects  in  which  we  have  provoked 


11 

the  judgments  of  Heaven,  and  there  may  be  other  grounds  on  which 
God  has  a  controversy  with  us,  and  the  swords  of  our  enemies  may  be 
His  chosen  instruments  to  execute  His  wrath.  He  may  first  use 
them  as  a  rod,  and  then  punish  them  in  other  forms  for  their  own 
iniquities.  Hence,  it  behooves  us  not  only  to  have  a  righteous  cause, 
but  to  be  a  righteous  people.  We  must  abandon  all  our  sins,  and  put 
ourselves  heartily  and  in  earnest  on  the  side  of  Providence. 

Hence,  this  dependence  upon  Providence  carries  with  it  the  neces- 
sity of  removing  from  the  midst  of  us  whatever  is  offensive  to  a  holy 
God.  If  the  Government  is  His  ordinance,  and  the  peopLe  His  instru- 
ments, they  must  see  to  it  that  they  serve  Him  with  no  unwashed  or  de_ 
filed  hands.  We  must  cultivate  a  high  standard  of  public  virtue.  We 
must  renounce  all  personal  and  selfish  aims,  and  we  must  rebuke  every 
custom  or  institution  that  tends  to  deprave  the  public  morals.  Virtue 
is  power,  and  vice  is  weakness.  The  same  Polybius,  to  whom  we 
have  already  referred,  traces  the  influence  of  the  religious  sentiment 
at  Rome  in  producing  faithful  and  incorruptible  magistrates,  who 
were  strangers  alike  to  bribery  and  favor  in  executing  the  laws  and 
dispensing  the  trusts  of  the  State,  and  that  high  tone  of  public  faith 
which  made  an  oath  an  absolute  security  for  faithfulness.  This  stern 
simplicity  of  manners  we  must  cherish,  if  we  hope  to  succeed. 
Bribery,  corruption,  favoritism,  electioneering,  flattery,  and  every 
species  of  double-dealing  j  drunkenness,  profaneness,  debauchery,  self- 
ishness, avarice,  and  extortion;  all  base  material  ends  must  be  ban- 
ished by  a  stern  integrity,  if  we  would  become  the  fit  instruments  of 
a  holy  Providence  in  a  holy  cause.  Sin  is  a  reproach  to  any  people. 
It  is  weakness  j  it  is  sure,  though  it  may  be  slow,  decay.  Faith  in 
God — that  is  the  watchword  of  martyrs,  whether  in  the  cause  of  truth 
or  of  liberty.     That  alone  ennobles  and  sanctifies. 

"All  other  nations/'  except  the  French,  as  Burke  has  significantly 
remarked,  in  relation  to  the  memorable  revolution  which  was  doomed 
to  failure  in  consequence  of  this  capital  omission,  "have  begun  the 
fabric  of  a  new  Government,  or  the  reformation  of  an  old,  by  estab- 
lishing originally,  or  by  enforcing  with  greater  exactness,  some  rites 
or  other  of  religion.  All  other  people  have  laid  the  foundations  of 
civil  freedom  in  severer  manners,  and  a  system  of  a  more  austere  and 
masculine  morality."  To  absolve  the  State,  which  is  the  society  of 
rights,  from  a  strict  responsibility  to  the  Author  and  Source  of  justice 
and  of  law,  is  to  destroy  the  firmest  security  of  public  order,  to  con- 


12 

vert  liberty  into  license,  and  to  impregnate  the  very  being  of  the 
commonwealth  with  the  seeds  of  dissolution  and  decay.  France  failed, 
because  France  forgot  God;  and  if  we  tread  in  the  footsteps  of  that 
infatuated  people,  and  treat  with  equal  contempt  the  holiest  instincts 
of  our  nature,  we,  too,  may  be  abandoned  to  our  folly,  and  become  the 
hissing  and  the  scorn  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  "Be  wise,  now, 
therefore,  0  ye  kings !  be  instructed,  ye  Judges  of  the  earth.  Kiss 
the  Son,  lest  He  be  angry,  and  ye  perish  from  the  way,  when  His 
wrath  is  kindled  but  a  little.  Blessed  are  all  they  that  put  their 
trust  in  Him." 

In  the  third  place,  let  us  endeavor  rightly  to  interpret  the  reverses 
which  have  recently  attended  our  arms.  It  is  idle  to  make  light  of 
them.  They  are  serious — they  are  disastrous.  The  whole  end  of 
Providence  in  any  dispensation  it  were  presumptuous  for  any  one, 
independently  of  a  special  revelation,  to  venture  to  decipher.  But 
there  are  tendencies  which  lie  upon  the  surface,  and  these  obvious 
tendencies  are  designed  for  our  guidance  and  instruction.  In  the 
present  case,  we  may  humbly  believe  that  one  purpose  aimed  at  has 
been  to  rebuke  our  confidence  and  our  pride.  We  had  begun  to  de- 
spise our  enemy,  and  to  prophecy  safety  without  much  hazard.  We 
had  laughed  at  his  eowardice,  and  boasted  of  our  superior  prowess 
and  skill.  Is  it  strange  that,  while  indulging  such  a  temper,  we 
ourselves  should  be  made  to  turn  our  backs,  and  to  become  a  jest 
to  those  whom  we  had  jeered  ?  We  had  grown  licentious,  intem- 
perate, and  profane;  is  it  strange  that,  in  the  midst  of  our  security, 
God  should  teach  us  that  sin  is  a  reproach  to  any  people  ?  Is  it 
strange  that  He  should  remind  us  of  the  moral  conditions  upon 
which  alone  we  are  authorized  to  hope  for  success?  The  first  lesson, 
therefore,  is  one  of  rebuke  and  repentance.  It  is  a  call  to  break  off 
our  sins  by  righteousness,  and  to  turn  our  eyes  to  the  real  secret  of 
national  security  and  strength. 

The  second  end  may  be  one  of  trial.  God  has  placed  us  in  cir- 
cumstances in  which,  if  we  show  that  we  are  equal  to  the  emergency, 
all  will  acknowledge  our  right  to  the  freedom  which  we  have  so  sig- 
nally vindicated.  We  have  now  the  opportunity  for  great  exploits. 
We  can  now  demonstrate  to  the  world  what  manner  of  spirit  we  are 
of.  If  our  courage  and  faith  rise  superior  to  the  danger,  we  shall 
not  only  succeed,  but  we  shall  succeed  with  a  moral  influence  and 
character  that  shall  render  our  success  doubly  valuable.     Providence 


13 

seems  to  be  against  us — dis  ster  upon  disaster  has  attended  our 
arms — the  enemy  is  in  possession  of  three  States,  and  beleaguers  us 
in  all  our  coasts.  His  resources  and  armaments  are  immense,  and  his 
energy  and  resolution  desperate.  His  numbers  are  so  much  superior, 
that  we  are  like  a  flock  of  kids  before  him.  We  have  nothing  to  stand 
on  but  the  eternal  principles  of  truth  and  right,  and  the  protection 
and  alliance  of  a  just  God.  Can  we  look  the  danger  unflinchingly  in 
the  face,  and  calmly  resolve  to  meet  it  and  subdue  it  ?  Can  we  say, 
in  reliance  upon  Providence,  that,  were  his  numbers  and  resources  a 
thousand  fold  greater,  the  interests  at  stake  are  so  momentous,  that 
we  will  not  be  conquered  ?  Do  we  feel  the  moral  power  of  courage, 
of  resolution,  of  heroic  will,  rising  and  swelling  within  us,  until  it 
towers  above  all  the  smoke  and  dust  of  the  invasion  ?  Then  we  are 
in  a  condition  Xo  do  great  deeds.  We  are  in  the  condition  of  Greece 
when  Xerxes  hung  upon  the  borders  of  Attica  with  an  army  of  five 
millions  that  had  never  been  conquered,  and  to  which  State  after 
State  of  Northern  Greece  had  yielded  in  its  progress.  Little  Athens 
was  the  object  of  his  vengeance.  Leonidas  had  fallen — four  days 
more  would 4bring  the  destroyer  to  the  walls  of  the  devoted  city. 
There  the  people  were,  a  mere  handful.  Their  first  .step  had  been  to 
consult  the  gods,  and  the  astounding  reply  which  they  received  from 
Delphi  would  have  driven  any  other  people  to  despair.  "Wretched 
men  I"  said  the  oracle,  which  they  believed  to  be  infallible,  "why  sit 
ye  there  ?  Quit  your  land  and  city,  and  flee  afar  !  Head,  body,  feet, 
and  hands  are  alike  rotten ;  fire  and  sword,  in  the  train  of  the  Syrian 
chariot,  shall  overwhelm  you ;  nor  only  your  city,  but  other  cities  also 
as  well  as  many  even  of  the  temples  of  the  gods,  which  are  now  sweat- 
ing and  trembling  with  fear,  and  foreshadow,  by  drops  of  blood  on 
their  roofs,  the  hard  calamities  impending.  Get  ye  away  from  the 
sanctuary,  with  your  souls  steeped  in  sorrow."  We  have  had  reverses, 
but  no  such  oracle  as  this.  It  was  afterwards  modified  so  as  to  give 
a  ray  of  hope,  in  an  ambiguous  allusion  to  wooden  walls.  But  the  soul 
of  the  Greek  rose  with  the  danger,  and  we  have  a  succession  of  events, 
from  the  desertion  of  Athens  to  the  final  expulsion  of  the  invader, 
which  make  that  little  spot  of  earth  immortal.  Let  us  imitate,  in 
Christian  faith,  this  sublime  example.  Let  our  spirit  be  loftier  than 
that  of  the  pagan  Greek,  and  we  can  succeed  in  making  every  pass  a 
Thermopylae,  every  strait  a  Salamis,  and  every  plain  a  Marathon.  We 
can  conquer,  and  we  must.     We  must  not  suffer  any  other  thought  to 


14 

enter  our  minds.  If  we  are  overrun,  we  can  at  least  die ;  and  if  our 
enemies  get  possession  of  our  land,  we  can  leave  it  a  howling  desert. 
But,  under  God,  we  shall  not  fail.  If  we  are  true  to  Him,  and  true 
to  ourselves,  a  glorious  future  is  before  us.  We  occupy  a  sublime  po- 
sition. The  eyes  of  the  world  are  upon  us )  we  are  a  spectacle  to 
God,  to  angels,  and  to  men..  Can  our  hearts  grow  faint,  or  our  hands 
feeble,  in  a  cause  like  this  ?  The  spirits  of  our  fathers  call  to  us  from 
their  graves.  The  heroes  of  other  ages  and  other  countries  are  beck- 
oning us  on  to  glory.  Let  us  seize  the  opportunity,  and  make  to  our- 
selves an  immortal  name,  while  we  redeem  a  land  from  bondage,  and 
a  continent  from  ruin.  * 


/ 


Hollinger  Corp, 
PH8.5 


